Python Drops Experimental JIT Compiler & Ghostty 1.4.0 Terminal Release - Hacker News (Oct 28, 2026)

Support The Automated Daily directly: 15 free episodes a day, 5 editions, 3 languages, about $4 a day to produce. A coffee keeps it going: theautomateddaily.com/support Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Prezi: Create AI presentations fast - https://try.prezi.com/automated_daily - KrispCall: Agentic Cloud Telephony - https://try.krispcall.com/tad - Discover the Future of AI Audio with ElevenLabs - https://try.elevenlabs.io/tad Today's topics: Python Drops Experimental JIT Compiler - CPython maintainers withdrew PEP 836, so Python's experimental JIT compiler will likely be removed from the main branch early in the Python 3.16 development cycle. Ghostty 1.4.0 Terminal Release - Ghostty 1.4.0 adds full Kitty graphics protocol support, scrollback compression, a new Linux OpenGL renderer, Kitty clipboard support, faster performance, and several security fixes. Tailscale SSH Privilege Escalation Flaws - Tailscale is patching privilege escalation vulnerabilities in Tailscale SSH and advises customers to review access policies and disable SSH forwarding they don't need. Secret FISA Court Ruling Withheld - Senators Ron Wyden and Adam Schiff accuse the Trump administration of illegally withholding a FISA court ruling on Section 702 searches of Americans' communications ahead of the reauthorization debate. DeepMind Unveils Genie 4 World Model - Google DeepMind's Genie 4 is a multimodal, real-time interactive world model built on Gemini, with better physics and natural-language steering, aimed at robotics training and entertainment. Offline Survival AI Assistant - Survival LLM is a free, open-source, offline AI assistant for first aid and emergency questions that cites trusted sources such as FEMA, CDC and Wikipedia. Version Control for US Law - A proposal to treat the US Code like source code, with full version history and effective dates, aims to make legal research and legal AI tools more accurate. Inkjet Droplets Win Nikon Small World - German photographer Ole Bielfeldt won the 2026 Nikon Small World photomicrography competition with an image of inkjet printer droplets frozen in mid-flight. -Ghostty 1.4.0 Brings Major Performance, Memory, and Security Upgrades -Senators Accuse Trump Administration of Withholding Secret FISA Ruling -Google DeepMind unveils Genie 4 for real-time world simulation -Python’s experimental JIT is being pulled from CPython -Apple unveils 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 chip -Survival LLM Brings Offline AI Help for Emergencies -Apple Announces New M6 iMac with 24-Inch Retina Display -Tailscale Investigates Security Flaws in Tailscale SSH -Lexifina argues the U.S. Code should work like Git -Ink Droplets Win 2026 Nikon Small World Contest Episode Transcript Python Drops Experimental JIT Compiler Let's start with Python. The experimental JIT compiler that landed in CPython in 2024 is very likely being pulled from the main branch. The steering council had asked for a formal proposal, PEP 836, explaining how the JIT would be maintained, kept secure, and supported across platforms, and it set a six-month deadline. After community feedback and further concerns from the council, the maintainers withdrew the PEP, saying they simply don't have the bandwidth to carry it forward. The council had already said that without an accepted proposal the code would have to go, and the plan is to remove it early in the Python 3.16 cycle so any fallout surfaces quickly. The work may carry on outside the core repository, but for now, a headline effort to speed up Python from the inside has stalled. It's a reminder that in open source, maintainer time is usually the scarcest resource of all. Ghostty 1.4.0 Terminal Release Better news for developers who live in the terminal: Ghostty 1.4.0 is out, and it's a hefty release. The project says it now implements the entire published Kitty graphics specification, animation included. Scrollback is compressed transparently in the background, which saves enough memory that the default scrollback limit jumps fivefold on supported platforms. Performance improves across the board, especially on macOS, with faster launches, parsing, resizing, and search. Linux and FreeBSD users get a new OpenGL renderer that looks sharper under fractional scaling and tears less. There's also support for the Kitty clipboard protocol, so terminal apps can work with images and HTML on the clipboard. And worth flagging: the release includes several security fixes, some for malicious terminal output and graphics payloads. If you use Ghostty, this one is worth installing soon. Tailscale SSH Privilege Escalation Flaws On the security front, Tailscale says it is investigating vulnerabilities in Tailscale SSH, working with outside specialists to pin down the scope. Most of the issues involve privilege escalation, meaning a user who is allowed to SSH into a machine might be able to do more than their local permissions should allow, possibly up to elevated access. The company isn't telling everyone to switch the feature off, but it is treating the findings seriously. Most of the problems are already fixed, a patched client was targeted for the end of Tuesday, and a full advisory and technical write-up will follow. In the meantime, Tailscale suggests reviewing SSH access policies, turning off SSH forwarding where you don't need it, and tightening access to sensitive systems for now. Secret FISA Court Ruling Withheld Staying with security, but at the national level: Senators Ron Wyden and Adam Schiff are accusing the Trump administration of illegally withholding a secret ruling from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. According to WIRED, the ruling, issued about seven months ago, criticized how analysts use search filters to comb through Americans' communications collected under Section 702, and said those searches needed stronger legal safeguards. The court still approved another year of surveillance. The administration's own policy calls for such rulings to be reviewed for public release within 180 days, and that deadline passed in September. The timing matters because intelligence officials want Congress to renew Section 702 before the year ends, and the senators argue lawmakers can't make that call without seeing the ruling. They've asked for answers by November 6, and civil liberties groups are urging Congress to hold off on renewal until the ruling is public. DeepMind Unveils Genie 4 World Model Over to AI. Google DeepMind has announced Genie 4, its latest world model for real-time interactive simulations. The new part is that it generates visuals, ambient sound, music-like audio, and dialogue together, as one coherent world. Built on top of Gemini, it can be steered live with plain language, so you can change the weather, move the camera, or drop in new people and objects. DeepMind also says physics and human motion are more convincing. It starts as a research preview for trusted testers, with wider access planned later. The larger pitch is that models like this could become training grounds for robots and AI agents, not just a new kind of game. Offline Survival AI Assistant A very different take on AI comes from Survival LLM, a free, open-source assistant built to keep working when the internet doesn't. It runs entirely on your own computer and answers first-aid and survival questions from an offline library drawn from sources such as FEMA, the CDC, MedlinePlus, iFixit, and a large set of Wikipedia articles. Every answer comes with citations, which is a sensible design choice, because the project openly admits the model can still get things wrong. There are no accounts and no tracking, and it can also search files you add yourself. Version Control for US Law Sticking with accuracy, one essay argues that the U.S. Code should be handled like source code, with a full version history showing who changed a provision, when, and what it said on any given date. The author points out that language models often miss this timing and apply the wrong version of a statute. Bankruptcy rules are the example, where the right threshold depends on the filing date and on later changes that apply retroactively. The piece walks through one company's attempt to rebuild that history, and it's candid about the edge cases. It's an interesting case of git thinking applied to the law. Inkjet Droplets Win Nikon Small World To close, something lovely. A 25-year-old German experimental photographer, Ole Bielfeldt, won the 2026 Nikon Small World photomicrography competition, beating more than eighteen hundred entries from 69 countries. His winning image shows ink droplets landing on paper from an inkjet printer. He took the printer apart so the paper moved beneath a fixed printhead, then used flash in a dark room to freeze the droplets in mid-air. He got into microscopy during the COVID lockdown after finding an old microscope in his parents' attic, and taught himself by trial and error. No AI involved, just patience and a willingness to take things apart. 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